War Lord

Epilogue

I took the steps two at a time up to Alabama and Randy’s home and tapped on the door.

‘It’s open,’ Randy shouted from somewhere inside.

‘Shouldn’t you ask who it is before you invite them in?’ I heard Alabama ask in a low voice.

‘It’s Vin, if that makes a difference,’ I called out from the stoop to help them make a more informed decision.

‘Hey, man,’ Randy called back. ‘Come on in, for Christ’s sake.’

I eased the door farther ajar in time to see Alabama walk into the room. She looked good in a white tank top and old faded jeans cut into shorts, her hair up and off her neck in the Vegas heat, a broad smile on her lips. She opened the door fully and kissed me on the cheek. ‘You made it.’

‘Just for the day. Gotta head back to DC tonight,’ I said.

‘Randy will be pleased to see you.’

Speaking of the devil, he pushed himself into the room. He was in a wheelchair, so I’d have to say I’d seen him look better. Of course, he was in far worse shape the last time I saw him, lying half dead, curled on the road beneath a security camera outside the embassy in Dar. But that was three weeks ago and a lot can happen in three weeks.

‘It’s not permanent,’ Randy said when he saw the look on my face. ‘Picked up a touch of encephalitis. It’s in my spine.’

Fluffy the cat jumped up into his lap and began to immediately purr. Randy scratched behind its ears and then shooed it off.

‘He gets headaches,’ said Alabama. The way she said it, I gathered they were bad.

‘Getting better every day, babe. You wanna beer, Vin?’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and Alabama went off to the kitchen.

‘So,’ Randy said under his breath when Alabama was out of the room. ‘That was a hell of a ride. I heard you got badly burned.’ He was checking out the dressings that still remained on my arm and neck.

‘Mostly first degree.’

‘Mostly?’

‘Nothing serious,’ I said, and I wasn’t playing the tough guy. True, I’d picked up a few second-degree burns, but only two third-degree burns that had required skin grafts. It could have been far worse. And compared to Randy’s wounds, mine were insignificant.

Alabama reappeared with Heinekens and handed them out.

‘Cheers,’ said Randy, clinking bottles.

‘I’m going to leave you guys to it,’ Alabama said, ‘go pick us up some lunch. You feel like anything in particular, honey?’

‘Let’s have seafood,’ Randy suggested.

‘Just what I feel like,’ Alabama agreed. She lifted her chin at me. ‘Vin?’

‘I eat anything,’ I said. ‘And often do.’

They kissed and Alabama gave me another smile as she brushed past and picked up a shoulder bag from a chair beside the front door. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘That’ll give us forty minutes, give or take,’ said Randy when the door closed. ‘We can talk.’

I took a seat on the couch.

‘The doctors say there’s a chance I might not walk again. But the doctors don’t know shit. I’ll be shooting hoops in a week or two.’

I believed him. Randy was a fighter. A lesser man would have died in that cellar.

‘’Bama doesn’t know,’ he said, before upending the Heineken, his academy ring, back on his own finger now, tinkling against the glass.

I didn’t believe that for a second. Alabama would know more about Randy’s condition than Randy, because she’d make it her business to find out. That was the kind of woman she was.

‘I see you got your ring back,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’ He examined it. ‘Still waiting on the Breitling. I have to say that was the dumbest shit I ever pulled — the whole severed-hand business.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Once I knew what was going down in von Weiss’s camp, I could’ve walked. I should’ve walked. You know, come in from the cold.’

‘If you’d done that, von Weiss would have changed his plans, brought the timing forward. You couldn’t have risked it.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, I got cocky. I thought I could pay some lowlifes to do what I told them, take care of the details and keep it to themselves. But they went straight to von Weiss, got another payment, and dropped me in the hole. Fucking literally. One minute I was on the team, working in with Gamal Abdul-Jabbar and his Somalis; the next those fucking animals were slicing me up, shitting all over me, cutting me, frying my ass, trying to get me to talk.’ He was getting agitated, the memories returning, playing in his head.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. The ring, the snake venom, the fingerprints, the note — it was all there. Once we figured it out, the clues were like a roadmap.’

‘Too clever for my own good.’ Randy gazed at his lap, a moment of reflection, then looked up. ‘And I got Anton killed. He was just a kid.’

‘Anton?’

‘The pilot who flew the King Air. I heard how he died in Australia.’ Randy looked at his hand, scratched one of his palms. ‘The note. I wanted Alabama to contact Anna, I didn’t know that Anna had, you know…’

Died. I nodded.

‘And I didn’t know you and she were an item, either. The Kevin Bacon factor — amazing. Lucky for me you stepped in.’

Lucky he had a partner like Alabama. ‘Hey, Petinski told me to give you her best.’

He grinned and checked around conspiratorially. ‘And her best is pretty damn good, am I right?’

The grin was infectious. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Sure you wouldn’t.’ He rubbed his quads and the grin faded. ‘I heard von Weiss took her. I also heard about what happened to Shilling. He’s a sick fuck.’

‘It’s in his genes.’

‘I’ve been reading the papers. Maybe it would have been better if you’d left von Weiss on that island.’

I’d have done just that if a Brazilian Navy Puma hadn’t turned up and taken him away. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said.

We both took the opportunity to drink.

‘I didn’t know Shilling was on our side,’ he said quietly.

‘She didn’t know about you, either. Tell me, did you cross paths with von Weiss’s pilot — a Frog by the name of LeDuc? He also went by the name Laurent Duval. Short, dark and treacherous.’

Randy thought about it for a few seconds before shaking his head. ‘No. Though I’d probably recognize him if I saw him.’

The slippery little fuck had wriggled through the net again. His capture was now up to Interpol; indeed, he’d climbed to the top of their hit list.

‘So what’s going to happen to von Weiss?’ Randy asked.

‘He’s facing a raft of charges. Most of them are thanks to the work you did undercover — illegal arms trading, drugs importation, deprivation of liberty. He’ll go away for a long time, along with his people.’

‘Don’t bet on it. I note you haven’t mentioned the W80 thing.’

‘What W80 thing?’

‘Right. The fucker…’ Randy shook his head. ‘Well, you ran him down. Can you tell me about that?’

I gave him the ins and outs of everything I knew. Some of it he wasn’t supposed to know, but I figured Randy had earned the right to hear about it. When Alabama came back we had soft shell crab and fresh fat Pacific shrimp for lunch, cold Heinekens, and the day went by too fast. When it was done, Randy and I said goodbye and promised to catch up soon, then Alabama gave me a ride out to McCarran. We were maybe fifty yards down the road when, out of nowhere, she said, ‘The doctors told me there’s only a ten percent chance Randy’ll walk again. At first they wouldn’t tell me because I’m not next of kin. Can you believe that? I forced it out of them.’

As I knew she would. Having someone like Alabama in his corner — Randy was a lucky guy.

I glanced out at the seating in the auditorium from around the side of the wall. I was surprised to see that it was mostly filled. There were half a dozen other servicemen and women aside from me who were also receiving decorations. The Secretary of the Air Force had turned up, as had most of the staff from OSI here at Andrews. There was even a smattering of celebrities in the crowd: the rapper Twenny Fo’ and Leila, his R&B fiancée, folks I’d come to know quite well after some close calls we shared in the Democratic Republic of Congo not so long ago. Ayesha, Leila’s heavily pregnant personal assistant, blew me a kiss, as did Marnie Masters, sitting with Arlen. He didn’t want to be left out and blew a kiss also.

A female second lieutenant stepped up to a lectern and asked everyone to stand as the colors were brought out — the Stars and Stripes, as well as the Air Force flag — and placed in the center of the stage by the color guard. Then the official party was called onto the stage: the SecAF, the base commander, the photographer, various colonels and, finally, Brigadier General James Wynngate — everyone in their dress blues.

The lectern was vacated so that Wynngate could say a few words. Unlikely, I thought. My CO was a lot of things but a man of few words wasn’t one of them.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, after clearing his throat and pulling a sheaf of paper from his inside blouse pocket. Five minutes later he surprised me and finished. He also surprised me by saying a bunch of nice things about me. Maybe that’s why the speech was short by his standards, there being not so many nice things he could find to say about me, aside from the fact that my type indicators said I was an ESFJ and he believed that I was an exemplary example for others with similar indicators to follow.

Right.

The lieutenant took control of the lectern again, and said, ‘Attention to orders.’ Everyone on stage came to attention, and the audience stood. The lieutenant continued, ‘In accordance with special order number 1835, the Secretary of the Air Force hereby awards the Silver Star for gallantry in action against an opposing armed force to… Major Vincent Cooper, United States Air Force.’

That was my cue. I walked out onto center stage in military fashion, stopped two paces from Wynngate, then did a crisp left face toward the audience.

The narrator went on to read the citation, which was based on the action in Kabul, Afghanistan, less than six months ago, where I’d volunteered for close protection work. I’d been leading the team, chauffeuring around a crooked Afghan politician wanted by the Taliban. We’d walked straight into an impromptu ambush, or maybe it was planned — that had never been properly determined. A suicide bomber took out the politician, and then my team was caught in a killing zone that grew in intensity. I happened to be in a good position to deal with some of the opposing force, and then returned to my people and helped get them out without further injury.

Luck should also have received a decoration because there was a lot of that involved.

‘His unit secured inside the remaining functioning transport, Major Cooper stayed behind to provide covering fire, which enabled his personnel to withdraw from the engagement without further casualties. Major Cooper returned to the base by other means,’ the lieutenant concluded.

The other means was a pushbike. The details of the engagement brought it all vividly back to mind. The dust, the bullets, the noise, the deafness and the dead US Army Specialist with perfectly manicured nails, painted red. She was new in-country, a librarian, a reservist, a mother, and most of her head was gone. Sweat beaded on my upper lip and there suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room.

I heard the words, ‘Reflect great credit on himself and the United States Air Force,’ and snapped back into the here and now.

Following the script for these things, I turned, Wynngate turned, and we faced each other. A staff sergeant walked crisply from stage left to the general’s shoulder, holding a dark blue velvet cushion, the decoration on it. Wynngate took it gently, almost tenderly, and pinned it to the front of my blouse. ‘Good job, Vin,’ he said. ‘Try not to let it go to your head.’ He smiled and I think I even detected a wink.

We shook on it and the photographer snapped one for posterity. The general and I exchanged salutes and I about-faced as applause rose from the auditorium. As I walked to the wings I glanced out, and in the front row I saw Alabama and Randy clapping. There was no wheelchair and Randy was standing on his own two feet. Yeah, lucky guy.